October 26, 2010

Guest Post by Anthony J. Rapino: Zombie Love

Anthony J. Rapino writes horror. He also blogs about it and whatever else is on his mind at Tales of Twilight. His debut novel, Soundtrack to the End of the World, is due for release through Bad Moon Books in 2011.

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Zombie Love

By Anthony J. Rapino

If I had to choose a favorite monster, it’d be the zombie. Here’s my reason: You can’t romanticize them. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Twilight. Both vampires and zombies are members of the undead family, but at least with zombies some of the rules of death apply. They rot, ooze, fall apart, and generally don’t do too well in humid climates. Seriously. Have you ever left a rump roast out in the summer heat of Miami?

You see, I like my horror nasty, and while vampire’s can get porno nasty, that isn’t exactly what I mean. Give me bloody vomit and green puss over pale skin and bedroom eyes any day. (Of course, there’s always Porn of the Dead for those who don’t share my sentiments).

There was a time when I would have considered myself a zombie purist. You know the type. If a zombie runs or shows any signs of thought, the zombie purists cry foul. But where’s the fun in holding the genre back? Half the excitement is seeing what writers and film makers can do with our maggot-filled friends.

Look at Peter Jackson’s masterpiece, Dead Alive (That’s Braindead to anyone outside the US). If we tried to hold back the evolution of zombies, we wouldn’t have the gleefully humping-zombies scene, or the pregnant zombie scene, or the living intestine scene, or the ratmonkey! Oh, God love the ratmonkey.No, I’ll take my zombies any way I can get them, thank you very much. If that means I have to pretend a zombie’s decomposing flesh is still capable of supporting it through a 100-metre sprint that rivals the Jamaican Olympic team, so be it. If that means I have to acknowledge that the festering, inactive brain is somehow communicating actual thoughts, so be it. If it means I have to sit through a dozen awful remakes just to get get a single Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, so be it.Because I love zombies.